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Serving in Iraq leads to Middle East study

Living in Storrs for his last two years at UConn has been the longest Keary Salls has ever lived anywhere.

A foster child who attended high school in East Hartford and Rockville before graduating from Glastonbury High School, Salls, an individualized international relations major in CLAS, is used to being on the move.

An Army veteran, he spent one year in Iraq before enrolling at the Waterbury Campus. Once at UConn, he focused on Arabic and Middle Eastern history, politics and culture. He also studied at the American University in Cairo, Egypt for a semester, enrolled in an intensive Arabic course in Haifa, Israel and while travelling through India, helped residents in Leh, Jammu and Kashmir India, dig out of a natural disaster caused by excessive rainfall and mudslides.

“I don’t like to sit still for a minute,” he says.

His interest in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies was born in Iraq, he says, where the people were welcoming and warm. “On more than one occasion, we would go in by helicopter, round up an entire family and search their compound for illegal weapons. We often would find nothing – we had been given a false report. And the head of the family, who had been handcuffed and hooded, would invite us back for tea.”

Salls will return to the U.S. Army after graduation having completed his transition through the Army’s Green to Gold program. He will be commissioned, on the day before graduation, as a second lieutenant in return for an agreement to serve six more years in the Army.

In November, he will attain another goal. He has been selected to be part of the Army’s most competitive branch – its aviation program. He will attend helicopter school in Alabama. But first he plans to spend a month traveling around Europe, and nine weeks in another intensive Arabic language course in Amman, Jordan.

“I can speak Arabic conversationally,” he says. “I feel when I read it that it is as if I always knew the language.”

A member of the Reserved Officer Training Program at UConn, Salls has enjoyed teaching field training to other ROTC students. “I’ve been teaching them how to set up a patrol base. It’s very rewarding because I’m teaching them the skills that they will need as infantry soldiers to stay alive.”

And ultimately, it’s teaching that he hopes to do full time. But first, he would like to earn a PhD in international relations focusing on the Middle East.

Join us for a talk by Gina Barreca,2018 UCONN BOARD OF TRUSTEESDISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

All great works of fiction, poetry and dramaâas well as texts forming mythologies, religions, national epics to heroic sagasâhave loneliness at the heart of their narrative. From Persephone to Peter Pan, from âFrankensteinâ to âFrozen,â the stories we pass along are saturated with unwilling isolation.âOnly around half of Americans say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions,â according to a 2017 study. A former U.S. Surgeon General argues that âWe live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s.â We need more than social media. We need social contact. We need community. How can we break through the loneliness barrier? Being alone when in need of companionship is more than sad; itâs an epidemic.Chronic loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. We need to change our national story and, often, our personal ones as well.Even the concept of the âlone wolfâ is a myth. Wolves hunt in packs.

Reception to follow.

For more information about this event, or if you are an individual who requires special accommodation to participate, please contact the CLAS Deanâs Office at (860) 486-2713.

A liberal arts and sciences degree prepares students with the tools they need to excel across a wide range of careers. Given the number of options available to you, it can be overwhelming to narrow down career choices. Attending CLAS Career Night will provide you exposure to career opportunities for CLAS students.

This semesterâs focus will be on research-based careers. During this event you will engage with CLAS alumni, learn about various occupations, and gain insight about how to best prepare for your future career.

The McNair Scholars Program and the Office of Undergraduate Research invite you to join us for a brown bag research seminar.

Birds, Bacteria, and Bioinformatics: Why Evolutionary Biology is the Best

Sarah Hird, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

This series is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, and is designed especially for students conducting (or interested in conducting) STEM research. These seminars are opportunities to learn about research being pursued around campus, to talk with faculty about their path into research, and to ask questions about getting involved in research.

About CLAS

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the academic core of learning and research at UConn. We are committed to the full spectrum of academics across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We give students a liberal arts and sciences education that empowers them with broad knowledge, transferable skills, and an ability to think critically about important issues across a variety of disciplines.